


and she fights for her life (as she puts on her coat)

by nausicaa_of_phaeacia



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Characters, Bobbi-centric, F/F, Gen, Not Happy, Sad Ending, canon character death, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 17:30:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6249022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nausicaa_of_phaeacia/pseuds/nausicaa_of_phaeacia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A shot at the relationship between Bobbi and Kara.<br/>Sad, for obvious reasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and she fights for her life (as she puts on her coat)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [motherofdragons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/motherofdragons/gifts).



> I'm so sorry. I saw motherofdragons (@agentkara on tumblr) answer a message about how there were no fics about Bobbi/Kara, and especially no fluffy fics. I swear I was going to write fluff, but there's all that canon and I got very sad and wrote a thing that turned out to be sad.  
> Sorry.

It’s not –  
They start out as friends. Well, no, enemies, actually, in a martial arts class. The Academy has never really encouraged her students to bond with any of their fellow competitors. It’s not that Barbara cares, really, it’s just that – nobody seems eager to make friends, and not having people around you is not really different from before – she’s always been a bit of a lone fighter. 

It’s very technical: tackling each other, punches, kicks, the occasional hark, well. It’s just revision, and she keeps telling herself to _focus_. Her rival seems to be close to giving up, so she’s determined to go on fighting, but in the end, it’s this tiny moment of focusing on her enemy’s eyes that makes her lose focus, because weirdly enough, it’s not aggression she sees there, it’s determination, maybe amusement, but not bloodlust.

Before she can put her finger on it, she has to knock on the floor in order to be allowed to sit up for air, and it’s over. It’s over, but it didn’t feel so bad – in retrospect (and okay, maybe she’s still a little fuzzy from the fall), it seemed to be _a fair fight_.

All that gets drowned out by the instructor’s criticism about how fighting dirty is a _very valid option_ and potentially life-saving, how the advantage of stealth and surprise is something that can easily be used for a fatal blow before the opponent even gets to spot you.

Barbara can’t help feeling disgusted (there are too many memories connected to this sort of fighting, and it’s in this moment that she swears never to kill someone from behind – not to kill anyone if not necessary, to be honest – fight them, smack them, kick their ass, _yes_ , but no dirty body count), and she inadvertently looks at her previous opponent, Kara, when accidentally, their eyes meet. This time, it’s different, and this is the look that counts: for a moment, they mirror each other’s disgust, before resorting to a mutual smile.

***

It’s really thanks to each other that they pass their exams (and with flying colours, too). Actually, it’s hard to find them without the other, and some of the less dignified members of their training squad start calling them ‘Baccara’. Which, yes, ridiculous, but also something they are able to laugh about.

Interestingly enough, it’s not until they keep getting paired for training missions that suddenly, everybody seems to think they are awkwardly in sync with each other, inexplicably adapted to each other’s techniques and skills, unbelievably successful in their mission teamwork. It’s then that the rumours start, and oddly enough, Barbara doesn’t really mind. Sure, they aren’t true, but sometimes, looking at Kara doing a backflip to knock out a ‘hostile’ team member, or remaking her bun because her hair keeps getting in her way while reading ‘intel’, when she squints, she can see it. Well, she can see _something_.

And it just happens naturally; it’s just another movie night where they are actually sort of also prepping for one mission or another while also drinking herb tea and watching some more or less realistic romcom and pretending not to eat popcorn until the bowl is empty. 

They are both sitting on the ragged sofa in Barbara’s room and it’s pretty late, it’s their third or maybe even fourth movie and it’s hard to stay really awake through the nice but shallow plotlines. Still, neither of them really wants to go to bed, so they just sit there and hide under fluffy blankets, propping themselves up on colourful little pillows.

Barbara adjusts herself, pushes herself up to sit a little straighter again, when she accidentally touches Kara’s knee. It’s not important, things like that keep happening, and when you train with each other, you learn not to assign special meaning to touches. Less than a moment later, though, Kara’s hand covers hers, and from one moment to the next, they end up hugging and kissing each other on a pile of fluffy things, the empty popcorn bowl making a bell-like sound when it accidentally gets knocked over.

It turns into a night of holding each other, and that turns into two nights, and two nights become a week. Kissing her feels like the most _logical_ thing in the world, but with Kara, everything is just so easy; awkward moments are met with genuine laughter, and there’s not one moment of discomfort in her company, and sometimes, Barbara still thinks it might all be gone if she blinks.

***

Eventually, they are admitted to different S.H.I.E.L.D. teams, and it becomes harder and harder to live for the rare hours they get to spend together, even though – if she’s being honest – Barbara knows that the thought of Kara thinking about _her_ somewhere during a mission is what’s keeping her going.

They make it work, just as they did during their time at the Academy, keeping the same secret, using the same means of communication. In that respect, it’s not even that big of a change, and Kara’s skin still feels like petals, her kisses still taste of cherries and spring water and smiles, and her arms around Barbara still tell her that this, _this_ is the safest place to be.

It’s Kara’s deep undercover assignment that makes them break up – that makes Kara say they would be better off apart, that her deep undercover in HYDRA could essentially prove to be fatally dangerous for Barbara. Thanks to Barbara’s stubbornness, they end up getting assigned within a geographically small distance, and both in deep cover, both assigned to infiltrate a HYDRA cover facility, commanded to not know each other under any circumstances.

Their last kiss doesn’t have the quality of a last kiss; it doesn’t because Barbara insists that _it won’t be their last_ , that this is just a break they are forced to take, that coming back from impersonating a HYDRA employee won’t prove as hard as they’ve been told. There are tears in Kara’s eyes, salty water and _fear_ , and Barbara meets them with an innocent smile, an expression of naive hope, with the conviction that this assignment isn’t going to cost lives, least of all their own.

Their last kiss ends up not being more passionate than the one they used to share in the early morning, when one of them would already be dressed in tac gear and both of their bags still unpacked.

***

It’s not until almost three years later when she hears it from Coulson upon her return from her undercover mission that Kara was taken from that safehouse, seeking refuge at the exact location Bobbi’s been forced to give up.

Suddenly, it all makes sense: not hearing from Kara ever again, not seeing her name pop up in redacted casualty files either. Bobbi puts it all together (Hunter calls her that; he’s been calling her Bobbi since Dubai, and through all of their short marriage), and she needs to lock herself inside her bunk, lock herself in with a bottle of something far too transparent and heavy to be water.

It was _her_. She’s sold Kara out. It’s her fault she was kidnapped from there. Even though she’s always been so careful in selecting which bits of verifiable information to give up, which pieces of meat to throw her enemies. Had she agreed to that meeting a day earlier, Kara wouldn’t have been – she wouldn’t have been there yet. How was she supposed to know that Kara’s cover had been blown? That she had to run while pretending to buy groceries, reached the safehouse out of breath?

Talking to her while she’s in medical care proves to be one of the hardest things Bobbi’s ever had to do. It’s – they don’t know each other. Kara has no memories that include her, apart from the one she tells Ward mere weeks later: that it was Bobbi who sold her out. She sees her talk about Ward with that _spark_ in her eyes, the same eyes that she fell in love with, those same eyes who spoke volumes to hers every morning.

And it gets more painful yet. It’s not the needles, not even after the drugs wear off, not even the knee, not really, anyways. It’s the look of hatred on Kara’s face (this strange face, those cheeks that are so _out of place_ , making even her eyes seem those of a stranger), the pure disgust and contempt directed at her; and it tells her that at least one of them isn’t going to walk out of here alive.

It’s Hunter who comes for her, hugs her bleeding body after she’s tried to save him; she couldn’t have him get shot from behind a door, not with her in the room. And it’s Ward who shoots Kara, kills her in his blind rage, gets to hold her face as she’s on the floor. Bobbi wasn’t there, but she still gets to see that particular scene every night, as soon as her eyes close, with painful precision and in so much detail that sometimes, she thinks she herself might not be alive to wake up in the morning.

***

It costs Bobbi hours and hours of feverish begging, confusing phone calls to Maria while she still sounds drugged and in pain, hours of tears and immobility to get S.H.I.E.L.D. to organize a proper funeral.

Bobbi’s never been a patriot; well, she has, but she’s never wanted any part of this sick, neurotic desire for representation, of this twisted heroism and national pride. Still: covering a coffin with a striped flag and having a few soldiers salute a dead body seems to be the only way this country seems to be able to bury a hero.

The tombstone reads _Major Meredith Tredwyck_ , and the saddest part of all this is that Bobbi doesn’t get to say goodbye. The saddest part of all this is that what people will remember is that Kara was killed, and not know what she did, not know what she had to go through for being loyal.  
The saddest part of all this is that Kara gets buried with her face, but not her name, and without Bobbi there to take leave, because she’s still confined to this bed, her leg strapped to this bed and Hunter’s smile the first thing she has to see every morning, without being able to tell him even one non-redacted word about _her_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading.
> 
> The title's from Oren Lavie's 'Her Morning Elegance'.
> 
> Also, I apologize if this turned out weird. It's basically the first time I've written anything remotely f/f (because I don't have personal experience and am always scared of writing something stupid) and I hope I wrote that in an okay way because I don't really know what I'm doing.


End file.
